Houshi no Koe
by Daddy Elric
Summary: [3 of 3 complete, with omake][Taisa's Christmas slash birthday bundle] A smirk immediately bloomed on the face of the Colonel, and he moved to stand over the blonde. 'So you thought you'd come in here and get yourself a little kiss, is that it, Fullmetal?
1. Houshi no Koe

Well... We watched _Voices of a Distant Star _recently. Beautiful movie. And it was so romantic. xD It was really good. Go watch it! It's on Youtube, and it's only a half an hour long. -nod- Thus, this isn't very long either.

Edward and Roy are in middle school together at fifteen, and this is because their middle school goes up to the ninth grade, in case your middle school goes/went up to the eighth and you were wondering why they failed, like We would have done if We'd not known that. The monsters' name is pronounced ne-oo-pery. We have no idea how much time it would take to get a text across 150 lightyears, but ten years is bound to be wrong. We just needed to fix the ages. -nod- And yes, that star actually does exist. We Googled it.

This, friends, is Taisa's Christmas. 3 Part one of three, bitches. Each'll be a oneshot/drabble. xD He doesn't want this, but he's getting it anyway.

**Pairing**: RoyEd

**Disclaimer**: Don't own it! Concept is credited to Makoto Shinkai, Mangazoo, and ADV Films.

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HOUSHI NO KOE

_voices of a distant star_

The teen flipped his cell phone open, dark eyes scanning the screen for a moment. No mail... there never was any, was there? He sighed, running pale fingers through ebony locks. _How far have you gone? _he wondered, leaning out over the rail overlooking the city from the apartment building. The sky was bright blue, and full of puffy clouds with no worries. The city may as well have been empty; he had no one here for him now. _Are you even still alive? _He wasn't sure how he would be able to find that out; he knew _he_ didn't age while in space, but he did, here on Earth. They'd been fifteen when _he_ left. Roy was seventeen now, while _he _would still be fifteen. It was hard to imagine... _Have you really been gone for two years? _

_Ed?_

**Long blonde hair flowed free in a nonexistent wind; distant laser fire lit up the endlessly black nothingness in large, rolling explosions. The golden-eyed boy focused his sight on the large blue planet below him, clouds obscuring a lot of it. What he could see was either blue or green; the grey, technologically-advanced cities that covered Earth were nowhere to be seen here, lightyears away. He snapped to attention as a large, phosophorent gelatinous creature made itself known by attaching itself to his mech, and he ran the blue laser blade through it calmly, without much difficulty. Apple-red blood spurted out of the thing in stark contrast to the blue its "skin" was. **

**He could kill these without much difficulty. To him, and the standard soldiers on the _Delphi_, these things were just monsters. Inside, he knew they probably thought the same about him, and he planned to keep it that way. No need to get friendly. He just wanted to go home, after all. However, despite Edward's wishes, to get home he would need to bide his time till the end of the war. The Neuperi were not going to have any mercy for a small, fifteen-year-old middle schooler. **

**He paused, eyes flickering in each direction to figure out if there were any more Neuperi. No..? The calm voice of the computer rang out, detecting that there were no more creatures in the area. _"Neuperi attack radius has receded. Distance: 0.00000056 lightyears away. Attack mode deactivated." _He sighed in relief, fishing his cell phone out of its floating position a few feet away, and flipped it open. **

_**Incoming mail. **_

**He grinned, watching the small bar fill up. _Finally... Finally I have mail from you._**

_**Hi, Ed! I wonder if you've been thinking of me? I miss you. I suppose, though, you won't come back to me any time soon? Don't worry; even if it takes forever, I'll wait for you. If I'm a geezer when you come back, that's just what you get for going out there, isn't it:P Oh, by the way: your brother says he hopes you've grown, that he hopes his older brother isn't a shrimp anymore. Should I inform him that yes, you are still a shrimp? -- Roy**_

**Edward groaned, flipping the small phone shut. Even though he despised those jokes, he knew his friend was kidding. It wasn't his fault he was short. Roy knew it, of course, and enjoyed poking fun at him because of that. Really, Edward knew he was short as well, though when made fun of about his height he would explode and take things out of proportion. Roy would always laugh, though. Edward wondered...**

_**Is that what I love about you?**_

_**That I can say anything, and you'll smile for me?**_

_**Is this love one-sided?**_

_**Roy?**_

_I told you I would wait for you. Who am I to lie, and give up? You have a right to call me a bastard. _Roy sighed, peering idly at his cell phone for a moment before flipping it shut. He was nineteen now. He'd given up waiting for Edward this winter; and the rainy season seemed to gauge his emotions quite well. After all.. he was constantly crying. No one saw, but Roy Mustang the Great always cried. He cried inside, with invisible tears, but cried all the same.

A small 'blip' alerted Roy to the fact that he had mail. Mail? The only person who knew his mailing address on this phone was...

_Hey there, bastard! Miss me, do you? I'll have you know I hold no yearning for you. ;D Hell, what a lie. I miss you so much. I hope you haven't forgotten about me! I know, it's been a year.. Oh! We're heading to a new solar system tomorrow. By the time you receive this mail, we'll be at HD 209458, a star in the constellation Pegasus. 150 lightyears away... It'll take close to ten years for my mail to reach you when we get there... I'll send you information as we get it! Maybe we'll see some new animals or something. I'll have to take pictures. So, anyway.. I'm going to see you again. Promise. -- Ed_

Roy bit his lip, scanning the screen for another moment before flipping it shut. God, Ed.. a hundred and fifty lightyears. So far away from home... Wasn't he homesick? Opening the phone again and scanning the message, Roy realized that yes, Edward _was _homesick. He was just trying not to show it.

_Say, Ed..._

_Do you miss me?_

_You say you do, but I can't tell through texts. _

_Do you love me?_

_Is this love one-sided?_

_Ed?_

**'Meanwhile', back at HD 209458, Edward was in the middle of a fierce battle. The Neuperi had begun to attack brutally, unrelenting, and he was thrown into the middle of it all, slicing left and right, parrying and dodging. The monsters would not be slowed, and he joined the rest of the mech fleet as they retreated into the planet's atmosphere. They'd named the planet Terra, as it was similar to Earth, but not quite. He blinked down at the land as he passed over it. Here, a stag with four antlers lifted its head from grazing. A few kilometers away, a horned bear picked green berries off purple branches covered in blue leaves, and long-tailed rabbits hopped amongst a field of blue-petaled flowers. He couldn't help but find it, in all of its differency, quite beautiful, and he dipped down to inspect a pool of clear green water. The blonde looked up to find that the sky was green, instead of blue, which gave the water its green shade. Interesting.**

**He looked up as the red target guide flashed in front of his face, and found another gelatinous monster about to attach itself to his ship. Without waiting, he pulled the trigger on his pistol, dropping his phone (which he'd been just about to check) in his haste. "Dammit!" Edward dodged out of the way, two Neuperi colliding in the empty space he'd left in moving. He whirled around, slashing through easily with the laser blade. The pair of aliens exploded in spurts of apple-colored blood, and he looked up to find one other. This one was not attacking, and in his mind, he was back at the apartment building on earth, which he attributed to the mind-warping powers of the Neuperi. But it was nice... except that... _you're not here... _**

**"Don't worry." Edward whirled around to find himself staring at.. himself. "You'll see him again." This version of himself was dressed in the middle school uniform, just as he was. It was almost identical to him.. He couldn't stand it. It was unnerving.**

**"I -- I will?"  
**

**"You promised him, remember?" The image of himself swam before his eyes, and Edward was thrown back into the fight, where he'd been hanging motionless. He looked for his phone, and when he spotted it, he swore; it was much too far away to get to right now. He had to save himself before his -- **

**BOOM.**

**A rolling cloud of sulfur and fire lit up the green sky, and the mech units from the _Delphi _took off, away from the explosion. One was dragging another, and they retreated to the ship, which was hanging motionless in the black void, aptly named space. As soon as the units reached the _Delphi, _the ship immediately took off.**

One Year Later

Roy Mustang sighed, turning off his phone. The last message he'd gotten from Ed had arrived instantly, for some reason. It only contained two sentences, and the rest was noise, but it felt like the longest message he had ever received. The only thing the text said was "I love you. I'm coming home." And the rest... the sound of a battle.

Roy looked up now from his seat in the outdoor area of a small restaurant, staring at the cloudless sky thoughtfully. This year had been full of worry; he had faith in Ed, but not the rest of the universe.

Without warning, something hit him from behind, and wrapped two mismatched arms around him. One was metal, the other flesh and blood, but he knew who they belonged to. He turned, got up, kicked his chair away, and immediately embraced the smaller boy. Though Roy was eighteen now, Ed was still fifteen. He didn't even have to look at him to know, but he didn't care. "Ed?"

_Is this... real?_

"Yeah?" The younger boy grinned up at him breathlessly, as though he'd just run a mile. He prodded Roy in the chest. "You said you'd wait for me, bastard, and lookit, you're fricking eighteen."

Roy couldn't help himself. He grinned back, though usually it would have been a smirk. "Not my fault you went off and left me to become a geezer all by myself," was his reply, though his voice was that of one trying not to laugh. Roy Mustang did not demean himself by laughing hysterically in public, oh no, though he did rather want to.

"Not my fault you decided you'd age faster than me," replied the blonde without missing a beat. "Now c'mon, I want to get a donut. You have _no _idea what they fed me up there."

With a chuckle, the darkhaired youth nodded, letting the blonde go and taking his hand instead. "Sure," he said lightly, but looked at Edward sharply, warning him: "Don't spend all my money."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. C'mon." Ed ran ahead, and Roy watched him go, grinning all the while.

_Welcome home, Ed._

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It was so hard to fricking finish that, you have no idea. xP Oh, and it was supposed to be assumed that Ed got his automail in space. -shifty-


	2. Always & Never

Inspired by the song _Always & Never _on Coheed and Cambria's _Good Apollo I'm Burning Star IV: Volume One: From Fear Through The Eyes Of Madness. _Thought it was a nice angsty HyuRoi line. And goddaim, are We in the mood for angst.

Pairing: Post-HyuRoi

Disclaimer: Don't own it! Title's disclaimed at the top, lyrics in the fic are from _Soldier Side _by System of a Down.

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**ALWAYS & NEVER**

_here... i'm still waiting here, my dear_

_for one kiss from you_

Those days are lost, in an amber haze he remembers little of. Ever since that night, the night he'd gotten the wordless call from... _you. _He still remembers that night as if it were yesterday, although he views that phrase as much too cheesy. But he does. It's clear in his memory as if the memory itself was created just a few moments ago, though by now he knows it's been years.

The low beat of a drum reaches his ears; he's put the radio on, for some reason he doesn't know. If he strains his ears he can hear lyrics:

"_Young men standing on top of their own graves_

_Wondering when Jesus comes, are they gonna be saved? _

_Cruelty to the winner, bishop tells the king his lies_

_Maybe you're a mourner, maybe you deserve to die_"

He grins to himself, but it's not a happy grin. It has no feeling, no soul involved. The hand holding the stout glass of bourbon shakes uncontrollably, and he has to put the glass back on the table so he doesn't shatter it. He knows someone who can fix it easily, without having to draw anything, but demanding help from a boy half his age is not something he wants to damage his pride over.

He realizes then that along with his hand, his eyes are prickling, and a fat droplet of water begins to form on his lower eyelid. Why is he... No. He doesn't care anymore. He lets the single tear slide down his cheek. It reminds him of the funeral, really. It was sunny that day, and the sky is clear tonight. Looks like it's

_starting to rain._

_But... it's not raining..._

_Yes, it is. This is rain._


	3. Stupid

We were having a hard time deciding whether this would be its own fic or the last part of Taisa's Christmas, but We decided on Christmas. Oh, We're writing an omake as a birthday present, too: D Since it's his birthday in lyke, five days, and all. -nod-

Pairing: RoyEd

Disclaimer: Don't own it!

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**STUPID**

"Roy Mustang, you're being stupid."

I hate those words. Am I not allowed to wait for him, to be sure that he'll come back? Our last meeting...

_"We're not so different."_

Words were exchanged, goals defined. I'm pretty sure he was ready for his fate, as was I. I remember that night, as I cried out in pain and _that man _simply looked on in satisfaction, dragging his blade through my shoulder like a hot knife through butter. I remember the morning after that, waking up in a hospital ward with an eyepatch, courtesy of Frank Archer, and Hawkeye sitting on a stool, her head down on my bed and her eyes shut, her hair pooling around her face like a river of melted gold. I had woken her up, and we sat and talked.

And then... Then I was sent to the northern border, making myself a promise that I wouldn't use alchemy. Not after what I'd done. Sins had been committed, and I was repenting. Or so I told myself. It kept me sane, at least.

"Roy Mustang, you're being stupid."

My emotions are getting a little out of hand now; I can't stop thinking that phrase to myself. The mask goes back up. I wonder... is waiting for him -- even if he doesn't come back -- is waiting such a bad thing? At least I've had faith, right? At least I've held out. I'd say "for a hero", but it doesn't seem to fit him.

Then again, looking at him now... Standing there in those strange clothes, telling his brother to thank his mechanic for the arm she so faithfully prepared. He looks so

(beautiful deadly heroic handsome mournful hopeless hopeful worried doomed prepared)

tragic. He's made a decision, I can tell. He had that look as a child when he had written something in stone, and at eighteen he still has the same look. But the look on his face makes me want to cry, because in this instant I realize that even if he's come back for a short amount of time, he's never coming back again. I'm never going to see him again.

My arms wrap protectively around his brother, who is screaming for him, crying useless tears, and Edward turns away, silhouette melting away in the darkness. He's gone back.

"Roy Mustang, you're being stupid."

Stupid of me, to wait for someone who was coming back only to leave again for good. I guess... they're right.


	4. Mistletoe

Omake! This is the drabble for Taisa's birthday, but it's a Christmas theme! xD We don't know how We manage... So anyway, Taisa and Rose will recognize this story. xD "Are you trying to tempt me?" "Only if you take it that way..."

Pairing: RoyEd

Disclaimer: Don't own it!

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**MISTLETOE**

"Dammit!" Something wearing black stumbled into the Colonel's office, gripping their forehead frustratedly. Roy looked up as Edward tumbled to the floor, lifting a brow. He wondered what the hell was going on for a moment, then stood, peering over a stack of paperwork at the boy lying on his floor. The blonde glared at him upside down. "What?" he asked venomously.

Roy lifted a brow, stepping around the desk. "What are you doing in my office, Ed?" He crossed the distance between them easily, looking down at his young subordinate with a mixture of confusion and amusement.

"Your niece," came Edward's reply from through gritted teeth, "decided it would be nice to stick mistletoe to my forehead, and now I can't get it _off." _He moved his bangs to reveal a sprig of the plant, complete with a few small leaves. He got up, still pulling at it, and sat himself down on the couch, an annoyed scowl on his face.

A smirk immediately bloomed on the face of the Colonel, and he moved to stand over the blonde. "So you thought you'd come in here and get yourself a little kiss, is that it, Fullmetal?"

The boy's face immediately turned red and his scowl grew. "No," he replied sullenly. "'Course not. I just --"

"Unfortunately," cut in Roy, smirk growing to a mischevious grin, "Even if you were here for that, I wouldn't be able to take advantage of your little... accessory. Tradition states the couple must be standing _under _the mistletoe, and it's currently below my head, is it not? However," and he dipped his head slightly, "who needs tradition?"

His lips brushed the blonde's, and the look on Edward's face made him smile slyly and pull away. "Now off you go to prey on the prettier midgets. It's high time you did, don't you agree?"


End file.
